#so i wouldn't be shocked if he votes for trump in the end

[cementcornfield]

good lord my inbox is a mess lmao

[short-wooloo]

I've been seeing a lot of "Biden should abandon Israel entirely, if he doesn't he's going to lose/im not voting for him unless he does" posts/reblogs and I'm so sick of them

1. You pricks weren't going to get off your lazy asses and vote anyways, you don't give a damn, this is just a pathetic excuse

2. There are a number of reasons why Biden can't and shouldn't do that, like the fact that you don't just abandon longtime allies (trump did that with the Kurds), the fact that the US is not the only country who supports Israel, the fact that Israel has its own arms industry to support its needs (that is not to say Israel is completely self reliant, just that it is not wholly dependent on the US, shocking I know, turns out Israel is an independent country and not the 51st state), the fact that netanyahu would most assuredly seek out new patrons-probaby russia and china, the fact that pulling all support also removes any leverage or influence the US has over Israel

But they pale in comparison to one fact:

Abandoning Israel would absolutely be a losing move for Biden

See despite what the far lefties think, support for Israel is in fact the majority view of American citizens and politicians, it's one of the few things both sides can agree on, the difference is in how, and ending that support would invite a MASSIVE backlash, especially in an election year

It would splinter the Democrats, like I said, they do generally support Israel, but their support-unlike the republicans-has conditions and limits, they expect Israel to have restraint in its operations, casualties to be minimized, aid to go to civilians, and plans to be made for a free independent Palestine

And wouldn't you know it, that's what Biden's trying to do

So what do you think would happen if Biden were to abandon the position that the majority of his supporters/ party wants hmmmm?

Beyond that, the backlash from independents/centrists/and "moderate" republicans would be insane

See, most of those voters are people who don't like trump/the current state of the republican party, and are either going to vote for Biden/sit out of the election because they don't feel like supporting trump, but they still support Israel, so if Biden were to drop that entirely, these people would be PISSED OFF, they would swallow their misgivings and vote trump, speaking of...

If Biden announced "no more aid of any kind for Israel" today, then by this evening trump would announce that the first thing he'd do when back in office is send the most massive arms package imaginable to Israel

And he would win

Enough Democrats from Biden's base would be pissed at him and not vote, the centrists/independents/"moderate" republicans would decide aud for Israel is more important than stopping trump and vote for him, and the already fanatical republican base would really come out for trump on election day

So in addition to causing what could be the biggest landslide in modern election history and likely sending American democracy on a death spiral, Biden deciding to end all aid to Israel would end up helping netanyahu and hurting Palestine more in the long run

Yeah, so uh, Biden's not doing that

Welcome to realpolitik

[starfreak]

I just realized how close to home the political setting of the Elder Scrolls hits.

Our education system is so fucked, that if we lived in a medieval fantasy world, I genuinely wouldn't be shocked if I heard someone say "if the democrats have a dragon on their side, President Trump is the only one who could stop them."

That's a real thing that Hadvar says when you escape Helgen by the way, only with different buzzwords. He genuinely has been so indoctrinated by the Empire that doesn't give a shit about him that he fully believes that A. the Stormcloaks have a dragon, which is foolish because he just saw them being torched by the fucker 10 minutes ago, and B. that some puny fucking military governor could stand in the way of a world-ending, fire-breathing sky lizard. That's like saying your favorite member of the senate could cure cancer just by showing up to the hospital.

Not to mention, the Empire is funding a genocidal, religiously oppressive foreign power that seeks to destroy any trace of the people whose ideals oppose their own just so they can have a bigger fucking backyard. I'm not saying "Israel are just like those silly elves in the Elder Scrolls" but I am saying that TES (especially Skyrim) is packed with political messages. And they are not pro-genocide, they are not pro-conservatism, and they are not pro-establishment.

Anyway I may be voting for the Emperor, but you're voting for fucking Molag Bal.

[countlessrealities]

I normally wouldn't do this, because this is a RP blog and one of its purposes is to allow me to take a break from reality, but this is too important and it's heaving me too much not to put it out there.

It's the first and ONLY post I'll ever make on the subject. Anything else can be discussed privately, if you want to talk to me about it. Ofc, with "talk" I mean a civil discussion, otherwise fuck off.

I'll start with saying this: I'm not American, I live in Europe. Still, what happened with the elections affects the whole world, including my country, so I think I have the right to be as bitter and upset and real fucking worried as anyone else.

Also because, you know, Russia and Ukraine are my neighbours, so if someone decides to do something extreme, like dropping a nuclear bomb, well...it was nice knowing you, guys.

However, that's just one of my concerns, and it's not even at the top of the list. What really scares me is what the world has been turning into in the past few years. There are extremists and fanatics everywhere, I see people getting killed every day on the news, and not just war victims. I'm talking deaths in countries that are supposed to be at peace and civilised.

Where I live, every day there's at least one woman who gets killed. The youngest one so far was 14. Every day there's some hate crime happening. Every day there are immigrants who die at sea, because my country prevents rescues and tries to stop humanitarian organisations from saving lives.

Every day our government makes a step further in denying us our rights. Abortion, euthanasia (which has never been legal in my country, btw, and now it probably never will), the right to hold peaceful protests, civil unions for not conventional (hetero cis) couples, a proper accessible health system, and so on. The list goes on and on.

I'm a doctor and I work in the public health system. Around here, the State is supposed to provide free basic care to everyone and make the rest at very accessible prices (with exemptions for some categories, depending on age, income, disability, etc). This sounds nice, but it's becoming less and less of a reality. They keep cutting our budgets, the waiting lists get longer and longer, people are forced to pay for what should be provided by the taxes they pay. It's nowhere as bad as it's in many other counties, not yet, but I see it getting worse every day. Over a year of waiting for an exam. You could literally die while waiting for it, if you can't afford to pay for it. Also, everything in the health system is understaffed. There aren't enough doctors, nurses and the rest of the personnel. A lot of my colleagues leave the public and open their own private practices and, as much as I hate it, I can't even blame them. We're mostly underpaid and the shifts are fucking brutal.

It's getting hard to do everything. Do your work properly, have freedom, be able to be yourself, be allowed to live your life now and with whom you choose.

I know for sure that Trump's winning is just going to exacerbate all of this and honestly I can't help but think that it's gonna end badly for a lot of people, if not for everyone. I'm not saying that the other side is blameless, it's their fault too if we got this far, but at least we wouldn't be risking what we're facing now with them.

I wish I could say that I'm shocked that he won, and with so many votes, but I'm not. If something, this is the umpteenth proof of what I've been thinking for years. Humans suck and we're obviously set on self-destruction. Just look at what we have done to the planet. And what's crazier is that, even with all the consequences of climate change slapping us in the face every day, we still go on as if it wasn't a big deal. Because, of course, unless it happens to you specially, it doesn't really matter, does it?

I'm not saying that I've completely lost the little faith I had in humanity after this, but I've surely become more pessimistic than I already was. Perhaps we should really just go extinct, it would be for the best.

I've rambled enough. I'll end by saying that, if there's at least a little justice in the universe, that man will get stopped before he can do irreparable damage. Does me wishing him the worst make me a bad person? Probably, in the eyes of some. But let's look at the fact. He's old, overweight, eats badly, probably never exercises. Being president of the USA is a highly stressful job. It's a fact that he is an individual with a high risk of cardiovascular events.

Anyway. Don't give up on trying to change things, no matter how little. I won't, even if I'm really tempted to. Stay safe, as much as you can. I hope to see you on the other side.

[takeonmetakemeon]

I prefer the polling average from RealClearPolitics, so I like that they have a website dedicated to polls and I don't have to see the um interesting opinion articles they link to on their main site.

Here is the current trend. I note that the Vice President's advantage has inched upwards slightly but steadily over the past few weeks, but that is mostly due to the former President's declining numbers rather than an increase in support for her.

The percentage of Americans saying they prefer Donald Trump has declined fairly steadily since it peaked on July 28th. The percentage saying they prefer Kamala Harris peaked on August 22nd, but her advantage over the former president has increased since then because his numbers have declined more than hers.

The current trend: Harris steady, Trump declining

We will find out where his support will bottom out. Best case scenario for him is that it happens well before election day. Worst case is that he keeps declining until the election and continues declining afterward.

Given his declining numbers, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump ends up getting 45% of the national vote while Harris gets 51%. That would probably give us an election map almost identical to 2020, with the only exception being North Carolina voting for Harris.

And I think that's a result most political experts would consider plausible based on current polls, even if it's not the most likely yet.

Given the current state of partisanship in the nation, anything less than 45% of the popular vote for Trump would be a shock, and anything less than 44% would be almost unthinkable, but he might have to get below 43% nationally to lose Texas or Florida and trigger a debate over whether the election was a landslide.

Or Harris would have to win over a bunch of pretty skeptical voters who don't like either party.

Both are hard to imagine as of today.

[shadowkat678]

Story time: something really cool happened coming home using Lyft today

Now. By now you should know I enjoy talking about issues, especially ones close to me and people I care about.I believe ignorance to be the root of most of our issues, and I enjoy teaching and spreading information. It's something I think is important and I'm not shy about it. Ask for my life story and I'll probably be happy to tell it and use it to inform, because I feel it's important to use what you know to help others.

Anyway, I got picked up by lyft, and it started with smalltalk. What are you doing in school? Oh, you're taking Spanish? I never managed to get through that. Never got a hang of studying and ended up failing in high school. Then it got to the weather, and I mentioned how there's a Muslim girl I always pass, and how I overheard her joking with her soaked non-Muslim friend about her hajab being a good umbrella in the rain. (Btw, I swear she has some of the cutest outfits. Like. I'm not always much for clothes but man she has some really cool fashion sense. 👍)

He got quite for a moment, and confessed he never really knew what to do when he picked up a girl who was Muslim. I won't lie and say I didn't brace for the worst, but then he went on to talk about how he never really got a chance to go to college and be around so many different people, and how he didn't want to end up accidentally offending anyone. He admitted he was still trying to fight his reaction to finding it strange with different cultures, and I brought up how I know a lot of different people on here I've talked to.

It continued on down the line. About how his grandmother when he was little wouldn't step foot in any store if she saw a black person inside, and how shocking it is with how diverse the area has grown. How he doesn't often get into politics, and how he really doesn't trust any politicians. Trump, Obama, Hillary, or anyone else, even though he still votes.

This was all cool, especially as I brought up some stuff he admitted he hadn't completely thought about. Then I bring up the idea of relating to others based on a experience with another potintal group you belong to, and we get on disability. Then, more specifically, autism. And here's where I feel really good about the ride.

You guys know how much we all talk to each other about minority representation mattering? Here's a real life example of why.

The initial reaction was one I've gotten used to by now. After making a joke I often use about people often seeming to think we should all be wearing matching uniforms as a means of identification, he admitted to being one of those who never would have thought I could be autistic. He never challenged me on it, or acted in any way like he thought I was faking. I explained to him the idea of the spectrum, and how it's not simply a straight line from autistic to nonautistic. I used examples from my childhood. How I started talking early and got a college astrology book for my fifth Christmas due to it having been a special interest, while at the same time being extremely naive, was bullied, and couldn't leave the house without ear plugs to cancel out noise. How I wasn't any better because I was considered "passing" and how many different autistic people just I personally have met.

He told me he never knew autistic people could read, or had seen, or at least was not aware of seeing, autistic adults. He mentioned bringing the past part up with his wife a week or so back after seeing a commercial on autism. And how he'd never seen anything besides "young white kids sitting in corners with that same bowl haircut". How that's all that's ever showed, and he never really stopped to considered there being so much variation.

He said some things that were a bit offensive, but he truly didn't know. A lot of people don't know about a lot of things. They don't research every issue that's going on. That doesn't make them bad.

The entire time he was so worried about coming across as offensive, since he knew he didn't know a lot on the topics I brought up. Yet he was listening and actively engaging the entire time. The full trip was about 30-40 minutes, and at the end as I was getting out, he was thanking me about talking with him. Personally, I don't think I should be thanked for that, because it's a natural thing I tend to do. It's something I'm engaged in and am fully happy to talk about. But it was eye opening for both of us, I think.

Logically I know there are people who aren't exposed much. I know there's ignorance. However, sometimes the level of it still can be shocking. He thought all autistics were nonverbal and couldn't read. When I told him about the nonverbal dependent people I've talk to on here he really was shocked he didn't know.

It was a reminder that we still have a ways to go, and some people truly are just ignorant. It doesn't make them bad. Just uninformed, and it's not their fault all the time. Which is why we really need to work for media exposure. We need awareness.

Knowledge is the key to solving so many issues. I think we're making progress. Today I feel like I helped to make a little more, and It really is a nice feeling.

[grigori77]

In all seriousness, though, I would've been with all the more rational folk whose heart was mostey hurt for the family of the innocent person who died and the other one who was seriously injured, and said that I wouldn't wish death even on someone so monstrous as Trump ... if I hadn't seen THAT FUCKING FISTPUMP. That shit alone makes me want to puke, I swear. He SHOULD have been shocked, or afraid, or just GLAD TO BE ALIVE after that. Instead? That bastard looked so fucking SMUG. The cat that ate the canary, I swear to the fucking gods. Because this could not have gone better for him, and he totally knows it. Regardless of it this actually WAS staged (and given the fallout, if it WAS that's so much more horrible once you think about it), it couldn't have worked out an better for him if he HAD planned it ahead of time.

That man DOES NOT DESERVE our sympathy. He certainly doesn't deserve any of the retrospective boost he'll probably get now he's likely to see a bump in his polls after surviving this.

It's EVEN MORE IMPORTANT now to do the right thing now. Get out there and vote. Vote for Biden, or whoever it is that ends up running for the Democrats. Make sure this hateful creature doesn't get another term of office. It's going to go REALLY BADLY for the country, and for the rest of the world. PLEASE stop it from happening.

Yeah ...